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Another Big Week in Campaign 2008
January 21, 2008

If you were looking for the Presidential race to be all wrapped up with nice looking bows on this Monday morning, that didn't happen this weekend, leading to what should be a very interesting week to come.

There were three different winners Saturday, as Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney won in Nevada and John McCain erased a stinging defeat eight years ago by winning in South Carolina.

Now the two parties will focus on two different states, as the GOP Show has moved to Florida and the Democrats will now re-trace the GOP's steps in South Carolina.

If you are keeping score at home, the most disappointing results of the weekend were certainly from John Edwards in Nevada, who only got 4 percent of the vote, while on the GOP side, Fred Thompson didn't come near a victory in South Carolina that he needed to jump start his bid.

Edwards will try to stay relevant this week in South Carolina, where he defeated John Kerry four years ago. His main goal is to stop this race from becoming all about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

For the Republicans, it is Rudy Giuliani who tries to stay in the race. He has spent the past few weeks criss-crossing Florida. If he wins, there will be a lot of surprised political experts in Washington, District of Columbia.

The Democrats Duel in South Carolina

With a debate today in Myrtle Beach, Clinton, Edwards and Obama truly kick off what is a very important next six days for the Democratic Party race in 2008.

I hesitate to say that this is a "must-win" for Barack Obama, but he really does need a win.

Why? Mainly to stop a drumbeat of stories that I know would erupt on Saturday night, that Hillary Clinton has beaten Obama in a state that has a high percentage of black voters.

It would give the Clinton Camp some real momentum heading into Super Tuesday on February 5th.

On the flip side, Clinton can probably survive an Obama win and still be positioned fairly well for what is almost a national primary in February.

John Edwards certainly can play the spoiler this week. A rudimentary review of the playing field would make you think that Edwards will compete with Clinton for white voters, certainly cutting into her support.

I'm going to be interested to see some of the polls this week, especially the daily tracking data to see if there are any notable shifts.

This should be a Barack Obama win.

The Sunshine Special for the GOP

In Florida, the polls have shown a close race among the top four candidates: John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.

I can make an argument as to why certain parts of the state of Florida will vote in decent numbers for each of those candidates. The major questions is, will it provide them with a victory.

How some undecided voters change their minds in coming days and how the attacks on McCain this week alter the race are of course hard to measure at this point. Watch the tracking polls to get some inkling.

The easy story for my colleagues in the media will be to focus on Rudy Giuliani. If he loses, he will be skewered by the press for focusing only on one state.

Someone wrote this weekend a piece to the effect that the harder that Giuliani has tried in Florida, the more his poll numbers have fallen. He did have a strong lead in Florida a few weeks ago, but it is now a battle for his political life.

Giuliani has staked everything on the Sunshine State. Will he produce a win and some momentum into Super Tuesday?

Stay tuned. This is going to be a fun next week.


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